Comfortable in Your Own Skin

“Fighting’s and fears within…” is an apt phrase from the hymn “Just As I Am” to describe our broken selves. The biblical man, Lot, exhibited that brokenness within by being so conflicted in making right choices. Abraham, his uncle, on the other hand, often exudes confidence and commitment in making right choices. He readily responds to God’s call and unhesitatingly obeys God’s command.
Genesis 22 gives a blessed picture of a man whose self is not conflicted but is at peace with God’s unique directive. God amazingly tells Abraham to offer his son, Isaac, as a burnt sacrifice. Isaac is the son of promise, the only son (with Ishmael out of the picture) and the object of Abraham’s great love. Yet Abraham doesn’t break stride in seeking to carry out God’s directive. There is no hesitation, argument, bargaining or plan of escape. What could produce such peace and strength within Abraham? I believe it came because he was confident in God’s character, God’s call, and God’s capability to keep His promises. Through Jesus Christ and His Spirit we also can know a transforming wholeness ourselves.
Though we will not completely escape anxiety, frustration, regret, doubt, or rebellion we do not have to be dominated by them. Through faith in Christ, we can come to a transformed self that is settled, despite challenges, in the confidence and comfort of Proverbs 3:5, 6 - “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”

See you Sunday!

1. What could God’s purpose possibly be in “testing” Abraham? Compare Job 1.
2. “Early the next morning” (Genesis 22:3) teaches us what about obedience to God?
3. Genesis 22:5 teaches us how remarkable Abraham’s faith really is. Compare Hebrews 11: 17-19.
4. What do you think Abraham may have had in mind when he said, “God himself will provide the lamb…”? (Genesis 22:8)
5. Genesis 22:9 teaches us a remarkable lesson in trust. Isaac could have overpowered his much older father but instead let himself be bound on the altar. Does this remind you of Jesus and His Father (Matthew 26:39)? Are we conflicted or confident toward the will of our Heavenly Father?
6. In thinking of the transforming of self to be healed and whole, what do you believe is a biblical view of self esteem? Compare Luke 5:8, Romans 7:24; Matthew 7:12 (the Golden Rule); Psalm 139:14; James 3:9, 10.
7. I found several Gospel types (comparisons) between Genesis 22:1-14 and the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord. How many can you find?

A Whole Lot of Trouble

It was a joy for me to return from a weekend of ministry in Texas and listen to Ken’s message. What a blessing to turn Hebron’s pulpit over to someone like Ken. The result is always an engaging, discerning, rich presentation of biblical truth from a man who’s deeply interested in our sermon series. If you haven’t yet reviewed Ken’s message, “Life Is in the Blood,” I’d recommend you do it before this Sunday. It truly opens up a fuller, deeper understanding of Christ’s power to heal our brokenness with God.

This week we move on to consider the second great area of brokenness that sin creates in us and that is one’s broken relationship with one’s self. The evidence of such brokenness is plain to anyone who does a little self examination. Even our culture recognizes the disjunction between what we are and what we are meant to be. How often have you heard the expression, “I don’t know what got into me?” Or how about this one: “Part of me wants to do this and part of me wants to do that.” How reminiscent of Paul’s words to the Romans in Chapter 7. It’s called the “do do chapter” because it perfectly describes his basic inner conflict. It describes the typical result of battles lost – we end up in deep ‘dodo’! The Bible is clear on man’s internal brokenness. One need go no further than Genesis 13-19 to get a vivid example of a man’s brokenness with himself. The man is Lot and Sunday he’s center stage in a message entitled, “A Whole Lot of Trouble.”

We begin the message at 8:15 and 11:00 with a song that well captures the prevalence of our internal brokenness. We follow the song with two brief, real world examples of the kind of internal brokenness. Whereas much of the Christian church today likes to focus solely on Christ’s power to heal our broken relationship with God, the Scriptures go much further to describe in graphic detail the depth of the internal brokenness that plagues the heart of every man and woman.

In preparation for Sunday you may wish to consider the following:

1. What is the difference between Lot and his uncle in terms of heredity, ethnicity, experience, divine blessing, and divine call?
2. How relevant are Paul’s words in Romans 7 to Lot’s story?
3. What are the internal signals from Lot’s choice in Genesis 13:10-11 that reveal Lot’s predicament?
4. How important is following your eyes or your “gut” in walking with God?
5. What position do the angels find Lot in when they arrive in Sodom (19:1)?
6. What does this position tell us about Lot’s value system?
7. Why does he petition the visitors as he does in verse 2?
8. What does the ancient law of hospitality require Lot to do?
9. Contrast Abraham’s welcome of the three heavenly visitors in Genesis 18 and Lot’s welcome of his guests in Chapter 19. What does this tell us about Lot’s heart?
10. What do you make of Lot’s hesitation in verses 15 and 16?
11. How does Hosea 4:16 speak to Lot’s brokenness?

See you Sunday for worship!

Life Is in the Blood

This week we welcome back to our pulpit the Reverend Ken Wagoner. Ken has been a great supporter of Hebron’s ministry throughout the years. Through Ken’s work with Chinese students at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University a number of Hebron members have been blessed to help staff an evangelistic outreach over the Labor Day weekend at Summer’s Best Two Weeks camp. This event brings Chinese students to students (graduate and undergraduate students) from across the East Coast to Jennerstown, PA to hear the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ in their native tongue.

For years Ken has also been a main force with PRISM (Pittsburgh Region International Student Ministry). This is an outreach ministry that we have supported with our mission dollars over the years and Grove outreach. Ken has preached at Hebron several times in the past five years, including this past Pentecost Sunday. He is a sound, expository preacher from whom all of us have learned and grown.

Ken writes, “This Sunday I want to emphasize that being saved from the penalty of sin is a great thing. It is a gracious gift from God, not anything accomplished on our own. However, to stop there in our walk with Christ is to deprive ourselves of more that God wants us to enjoy, value, and receive benefit. Stopping at freedom from sin’s penalty prevents us from being saved from the power of sin in our lives.”

The companion text for this Sunday is from Exodus 14 where the Israelites are pinned in by the Red Sea on one side and Pharaoh’s army on the other. They are scared to death. They’re so scared that they begin to accuse Moses falsely saying, “You brought us out here to die. It would have been better for us had we stayed in Egypt.” When they were released from Egypt it was as if they were being freed from the penalty of sin, but God has more in store for them than that. He wants them to be freed from the power of sin and experience the joy of walking by faith, not by sight. Such freedom is only possible on the other side of the Sea. Getting there requires them to put their faith in God’s strength and not their own.

As we’ve seen in the account of Jesus calming the storm raging sea in Mark 4, faith, simply put is fixing your eyes on Jesus and His power rather than your own. How easy it is for us to get our eyes locked on ourselves and our circumstances rather than on Christ and His glory and strength. In Ken’s primary text – Mark 5:21-34 – we find a wonderful example of a broken woman who finds wholeness in only Christ. Here we see a faith concealed, rewarded, and revealed. She is a model of what Christ intends in healing us of our “Cainish” brokenness toward God.

In preparing for Sunday’s message you may wish to consider the following:

1. What does the Bible mean in Exodus 14:8 when it says, “And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel…”?
2. What is the significance of including the number of chariots that pursue them?
3. In verse 10 it tells us where these saved people focused their eyes. What’s the product of that focus?
4. The Israelites are said to have “cried out to the Lord,” and yet, immediately (in the next breath) go on to excoriate Moses. What do you make of that?
5. What’s God’s remedy? We see it in His command to redirect their eyes (verse 13).
6. What’s God’s purpose in desiring to free us from the power of sin? (Hint: verse 17)
7. In Mark 5:21 Jesus again crosses the Sea of Galilee. Why do you think His disciples aren’t mentioned in this trip?
8. What does Mark mean by telling us that instead of getting better she got worse as a result of spending all she had in verse 26?
9. What’s the basis for her touch in verse 28? How is this “faith concealed”?
10. How is she a model of freedom for us in verse 29?
11. What is the reward in coming to Jesus the second time in verse 33?
12. How does Jesus’ message of freedom in verse 34 relate to living without the power of sin?

May the Lord bless you and Ken as you worship Him together this Sunday!

That's Who I Am!

“5” is the number of divine grace in the Hebrew Scripture. This Sunday marks the fifth message in our series, Living Beyond, and that’s fitting; because we are examining the way God restores what has been broken in every Cain. As we’ll see it’s only by His grace that our fractured self-image, our defiant arrogance, and our raging ignorance is overcome and healed. But as we’ll also see, “His grace” is not simply a theological concept. As surely as Cain slew Abel, Jesus demonstrates that while we were yet sinners, He died for us.

This week we’ll weave together three biblical texts, Genesis 4, Jonah 1, and Mark 4. When taken together they reveal the scope and depth of Jesus’ restoration of our brokenness. What is destroyed in Adam and Cain is remade in Jesus Christ. The koinonia, the intimate fellowship with God, that was lost in Cain, is resurrected and restored in Jesus Christ. O what a Gospel! O how we’ve missed it over the years!

As we noted last week, Cain is a picture of what we are by nature. Someone has quite fittingly said, “It is difficult to comprehend how much iniquity there is in our fallen hearts. Many are willing to admit that we have certain evil tendencies, but few are honest and sincere enough to admit that it goes all the way to the root of murder.” Instead of doing business with God and repenting of the sin of anger, jealousy, and hatred - instead of killing a sacrifice, Cain kills his sibling. He lures him to a lonely place and then does what Absalom does. We look in vain for an extenuating motive. Envy and hatred are the only ones. When God approved Abel’s sacrifice (remember his righteousness is based in the substitutionary sacrifice he offers – i.e. there’s no inherent innocence in Abel) Cain should have looked into his own heart and pinpointed what was wrong. But all he can do is look at what’s wrong with his brother.

Remember death did not hurt Abel, it “killed” Cain. Cain’s behavior is based on his flawed knowledge of himself and God. It’s a double-blindness. He can’t see into his own soul and he thinks that God can’t see him. Sin produces an arrogance that accuses God of abandoning His own. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain asks. The same God who comes to care for Cain is accused of not caring for Abel or his brother.

Someone has said, “All the life of the earthling is a barren search for something to allay fear and ease a fallen sense of significance.” We see that in Cain. There’s not the faintest whisper of sorrow. There’s not the remotest desire for grace. He’s lost in self-pity, resulting in a self-focus not a God-focus. No wonder the writer of Genesis notes that Cain dwells in the land of Nod the rest of his life. Nod means “wandering” in Hebrew. God’s prophetic words of Genesis 4:12 are realized for every Cain, everyone who’s estranged from God. To be alone without God is the worst thing earth can hold and Cain proves it.

But God doesn’t leave us there. He can’t tolerate leaving us in our brokenness. No, it’s for restoration that God becomes a man. It’s to deliver us from Nod that Jesus says, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden.” Can you think of anything more wearying and burdensome than our Cainite brokenness? This Sunday we examine how He does it.

We begin by looking at the end of the Genesis 4:1-16 text. Here we see the back story to Mark’s account of Jesus in the boat on the Sea of Galilee. By connecting these two texts and comparing the Jonah 1 correlate, we can see just how Jesus brings wholeness out of brokenness in our relationship with God.

The title of Sunday’s message is “That’s Who I Am!” It’s the answer to last week’s “Who Am I?” message. In preparation for Sunday you may wish to examine the following:

1. How free is Cain’s will?
2. What are the signs of his brokenness in Genesis 4?
3. What does God mean when he says in Genesis 4:10 that Abel’s blood cries out to Him from the ground?
4. What does Cain mean when he responds to God in verse 8 by saying, “My punishment is more than I can bear?”
5. How does Mark know about the Sea of Galilee story in Mark 4?
6. What is the parallel between the disciples’ reaction to the storm and the sailors in Jonah 1?
7. How does Jesus respond to the disciples’ question in verse 38?
8. What is the parallel of Jesus’ questions in verse 40 and Cain’s statement in question #4?
9. What is the issue to which Jesus points in His second question about faith?
10. What parallels and what differences do you see between the Mark 4 incident and the Jonah 1 incident?
11. Why are the disciples more terrified after the wind and waters cease?
12. What is the nature of their question in verse 41?
13. How is this incident a precursor of the cross?
14. How does Jesus answer the disciples’ charge that He may not care what happens to them?
15. How does all of this demonstrate that only Jesus can heal our brokenness toward God?

See you Sunday for new members, an 11:00 baptism, and several special features!

Who Am I ?

Back in January 2010 we began a 12-week preaching series entitled, “Portraits of Christ in the Old Testament” and we started with Abel. We offered four points that day contrasting the blood of both men and seeing how Jesus’ was greater.

The early church called Abel the first martyr. Augustine called him a pattern of the regenerate soul. But do you remember what his name means in Hebrew? “A breath” or “a vapor.” It’s not like the breath mentioned in Genesis 2. It’s not like the breath God breathes into the dust to create a living spirit. Actually, it’s the antithesis of that. It’s the kind of breath you find in Psalm 39 when the Psalmist says, “Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!” It’s a breath of little consequence; a vapid vapor with little substance or weight. It’s as if, when Eve names this second son, she has expended all her energy, as well as her hopes and dreams. What a contrast between this second son and her first son.

In Genesis 4:1 we find Eve naming her firstborn – Cain. The English translation says, “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.’” But in Hebrew there’s a much more profound point to Eve naming her firstborn. The Hebrew word for “gotten” sounds like the name Cain, but the meaning of his name goes deeper than that. In fact, her naming of her firstborn is directly tied to God’s pronouncement in Genesis 3:15. From Eve’s perspective, the birth of Cain is the fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation and deliverance. But when he grows up and becomes a man this hope is dashed. How can Eve be so wrong? The same way we can be so wrong.

The thesis of Sunday’s message is that we are Cain. Just as Abel is an excellent picture of Jesus, Cain is a perfect portrait of who we are by nature. Cain is a living, breathing example of the depth of our brokenness in sin.

In Cain we have a picture of how every possible koinonia is broken: our brokenness with God, ourselves, our brother, and our nature. Instead of following God’s prescribed order, Cain takes matters into his own hands, not once, but repeatedly. Instead of killing his sin, he kills his sibling. He lures him into a lonely place and there sets an example for Absalom (II Samuel 13), Joab (II Samuel 20), Judas (Matthew 26), and many others in Scripture. The story of Cain is so profound and so relevant that the Apostles John, Paul, and Jude all speak of his correlation to us.

This Sunday is World Communion. It’s the Sunday we gather with Christians all over the globe, of every race, tribe, and tongue to remember that we are reconciled and restored by divine grace through faith, not of human works lest anyone should boast. What a perfect Sunday to study Genesis 4:1-16. Here one chapter after the fall, we see the depth of our brokenness and the height of God’s amazing grace. In fact, the offer God makes to Cain in verse 7 is the same offer He makes to every man through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In preparing for this message I’ve had to leave at least a third on the “cutting room floor.” I hope to pick some of it up next week in a message entitled, “That’s Who I Am!” I am convinced if you dig into this story of Cain you will see so much more than you’ve ever seen before. You will not only see your original identity, you will see the Lamb of God perhaps in ways that you’ve never seen Him before. In the story of Cain we are both present.

Here are a few things to consider as you prepare for Sunday:

1. How does the Hebrew text render Genesis 4:1?
2. What is the link between Eve’s hopes and dreams and Genesis 3:15?
3. What does the name “Cain” mean in English?
4. What does the author of Hebrews mean when he says in Hebrews 11 that Abel brought his offering to God in faith?
5. What is the reason God had no regard for Cain’s offering?
6. What does that say to us about our worship?
7. What is the source of Cain’s anger?
8. What is God’s response to Cain’s anger?
9. What do you make of God’s warning in verse 7?
10. What is the sin under the sin for Cain? And what is God’s remedy for it?
11. What is the connection to the communion table?

See you Sunday!

The Tracks of My Tears

In 1965 the Miracles introduced a ballad to the music world that has become a signature song for Smokey Robinson. It is, in the opinion of many, the finest recording the Miracles ever produced. In two years it sold more than one million records. Though today it’s treated as if Smokey created it himself, the truth is, it was a collaborative effort.

People say I'm the life of the party
Because I tell a joke or two
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty
Deep inside I'm blue

So take a good look at my face
You'll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it's easy to trace
The tracks of my tears.

At this point in the song it could easily describe something far greater than the scorn of a lover. In fact, if you delete five or six lines of the remaining lyrics it perfectly describes the natural human condition. Look at the third stanza:

Outside I'm masquerading
Inside my hope is fading
Just a clown oh yeah
Since you put me down
My smile is my make-up
I wear since my break up with you.

When we fell in Adam our break up was more serious than the one Smokey croons over. It’s not the brokenness of a common love affair, it’s the brokenness of the entirety of the person – body, soul, and spirit. And it’s this brokenness that will be the subject of Sunday’s message – “The Tracks of My Tears.” Our text is Romans 3:9-20.

Years ago I unintentionally drew the ire of a man and his family when I repeated the words of the great theological scholar and Princeton professor, J. Gretchen Machen. Machen said, in referring to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that it is “good news, not good views.” Even though Machen declared this truth nearly a century ago, his words are even more relevant today. All around us is the prevailing notion that we are all basically good and sin is not all that serious. More than ever people revel in their own opinions and depreciate the gravity of sin because they focus on the acts of sin rather than upon the root of sin. But not Paul, not Machen, and not Jesus. They never miss the full extent of what it means to be a sinner.

The intent of our new series is to look past the Gospel’s first stage – our deliverance from the penalty of sin to its second stage – our deliverance from the power of sin. And underlying any sound treatment of the Big Gospel is a thorough depiction of the gospel’s predicate – our ruin in sin. So, this week and next week we will be reviewing our brokenness, our disharmony, the tracks of our tears, and Jesus’ power over the presence of sin in our lives.

In preparation for this Sunday’s message you may wish to consider the following:

1. What does it mean when someone says, “The message of salvation for most Christians in America has been hijacked?”
2. How do Jesus’ statements in Mark 1:15 and John 3:3 signal that the gospel is bigger than salvation from the penalty of sin?
3. What does the Genesis 3 account of man/woman’s fall into sin tell us about the extent of the fall? Can you find four different kinds of brokenness here?
4. How do you define the word “koinonia”? What’s the relationship between koinonia and our fall into sin?
5. How many definitions of sin can you find in Scripture? Did you know that the Bible translates twelve different words “sin”?
6. What does it mean to say that by nature we are/were “ruled by sin”?
7. Luther talks about the sin under the sin. What do you think he means by that?
8. How does the gospel deal with our core problem?
9. Can you find any relevance to Jesus’ statement in Matthew 15:11 and the sin under the sin?
10. If Paul’s statement in Romans 3:20 is true, what’s the answer? (See Hebrews 10:5-7)

See you Sunday for our second message on Living Beyond!

The Big Story

Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the beginning of our new series, Living Beyond. In the past, Amy Warner has kidded me about my ability to link a few disparate Sunday morning happenings like a baptism or communion, with say, the Steeler opener. But this Sunday the linkage is not at all difficult.

At 8:15 and 11:00 the message will begin with a clip of George Bush’s bullhorn speech on the rubble of the World Trade Center ten years ago. In no way is it an endorsement of politics, policies, or pride, rather it’s a helpful way into our subject this Sunday as we look at “The Big Story”! Among the points Bush makes in those two minutes is the fact that the events of 9/11 brought many Americans to their knees in prayer. That point is well corroborated by a former Wall Street Journal editor (faith unknown) who walked the streets of Manhattan that fateful Tuesday ten years ago. I’ll briefly tell her story on Sunday and her written reflections published three days later in her newspaper. What the president and the deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page found in common was a theme of the tragedy – in times of crisis there seems to be a greater thirst for the things of God. Another way of saying that is - a profound thirst for salvation.

This week we begin a new 12-week series that will focus on the full extent of our salvation in Christ. Did you know that the Bible speaks of salvation in three different tenses – the past, the present, and the future? In each tense the salvation we enjoy in Christ is from a different enemy. And the great problem of our day is that most Christians only know of one tense – the past tense – Jesus saving us from the penalty of our sin.

This is a profound problem of which Paul was acutely aware. It’s because of this problem that he earnestly desired to travel to Rome to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s also this problem that prompts him to write his magnus opus, the Book of Romans.

In preparing for worship this 9/11 you may wish to consider the following questions.

1. Why would Paul say he’s eager to preach the gospel to Christians? (I thought we should be eager to preach it to pagans!)
2. Why does he understand himself to be under an obligation to Greeks and non-Greeks (barbarians), the wise and the foolish?
3. Why does Luther say to preaching students that “We must preach the gospel to ourselves lest we grow discouraged?”
4. What does the word “gospel” mean to the Romans?
5. What did the messengers of Caesar declare to any Roman conquered population?
6. How does Jesus’ announcement in Mark 1:15 relate to a Roman conception of the gospel message?
7. What part of the gospel is so hidden for most Christians today? (Think of three 3 tenses.)
8. What is the central message of Jesus’ teaching?
9. How does the gospel of Jesus Christ speak to our two most deep-seated needs and God’s original intentions in creating us?
10. The word “salvation” comes from the Latin word for health. How does Jesus’ promise of “rest”, “shalom”, “wholeness”, relate?
11. How do the words of Paul in Romans 1:14-17 relate to the thirst we witnessed by George Bush and Melanie Kirkpatrick?

See you on 9/11!